Opinion Contributor

Republicans misjudge Tom Perez

Eight years ago, the Aspen Institute initiated a new fellowship program designed to counter the nasty partisanship that had seeped into the political system. It was not our goal to create some form of magical political “center”; democracy depends on vigorous debate and we expected conservatives and liberals to hold firm to their principles, as they should.

But we did want to bring together those political leaders, left, right, and center, who were willing to listen to the other side and see whether there were areas where they could find common ground in the national interest. That first class of Fellows included a great mix of the best young political leaders we could find, beginning with Gabby Giffords, who was then a Democratic state legislator in Arizona; Jon Bruning, the conservative Republican attorney general of Nebraska; Michael Steele, who became the national chairman of the Republican Party; two who have since become Republican members of Congress (Erik Paulsen and Lynn Jenkins) … and Tom Perez, then the president of the Montgomery County Council in Maryland.

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It’s understandable that Senate conservatives would prefer a secretary of Labor whose views are more closely in line with their own. But a Democrat won the presidency and his Cabinet will naturally reflect views similar to his. Presidents are not automatically entitled to have their nominees confirmed but it is an abuse of the Senate’s constitutional prerogatives to reject a nominee simply because he shares the president’s views rather than those of the minority party.

What one ought to look for in any department head is character, intelligence, integrity, fair-dealing, an openness to competing viewpoints – in other words, somebody who will serve not just the president but the nation. I have known and worked with Tom Perez for nearly a decade now. I have watched him in countless interactions with men and women whose political views are very different from his own. And I have seen the tremendous respect he has engendered from highly-regarded public officials representing the entire range of political philosophies.